Bar Goto

Sublime cocktails and elevated bar snacks on the Lower East Side? We’re in

Run to Bar Goto for what is perhaps the sexiest lighting in Manhattan: It’s awash with soft amber glow, save for bright, direct beams that illuminate the wooden bar top from on high. Forget what’s on the street outside, and it’s easy to imagine that you’ve stumbled into an intimate cocktail bar in Tokyo. Better yet, owner Kenta Goto’s cocktails—honed during seven years at the Pegu Club—taste sublime, all quiet magic. The Improved Shochu Cocktail, a crystal-clear combo of barley spirit, aged gin, and hops liqueur served in a cedar drinking box, is delicate and pristine, what holy water ought to taste like. And the tight roster of carefully executed Japanese drinking snacks—think punchy miso-glazed chicken wings—keep the vibe from feeling too sanctimonious.
PRO TIP: The food is substantial (and tasty) enough to make a meal of, but getting a couple of early evening cocktails and snacks before a later downtown dinner rez is really the move here. And don’t sleep on the seaweed-and-sesame-flecked celery, which will ruin you for bar nuts forever.

THE DETAILS: Closed Monday. The scene is civilized (and prime bar seats easy to snag) before 7, but things get clubbier (as in, there’s a door guy) as the night progresses.